What a marvelous event and march. Congratulations to everyone on this magnificent display of unity and community. We are privileged to have at least one day a year where we can come together to celebrate and commemorate the people who pushed and continue to push for social justice and equity and the progress that they have made. We also need to take stock in our current state of equity and re-commit ourselves to eradicating all discrimination based on difference. I have only a minute to speak but I would like to encourage that all of us develop or resurrect a new skill of thinking and approach when we encounter oppressive and offensive action. Too often we are quick to punish, to exile, to embarrass. Far from encouraging equity, this tactic more often encourages those individuals to confirm their hatred and discourages acceptance of difference. Importantly, we focus a lot on people’s faults in social justice work. I am offering a useful, albeit difficult method to use to gain more supporters and activists of equity work and social justice. I suggest that in the face of offensive action or language we take a beat and a breath and engage that person in a new kind of conversation. Adopting a restorative justice way of thinking, we should think about how we can better understand the context of the situation. In this line of thinking, we accept that we have all been victimizers and victims and most importantly, that we are stakeholders. We must accept that at certain times we will be victims and others, oppressors. We need understand that our definitions of community need to be expanded. Yes, we should enjoy the benefits of our smaller communities based on our individual identities. But we should recognize that we are all part of larger communities where we are always stakeholders. To that end when we encounter problematic or offensive action, we should ask the individual these guiding questions in thought and conversation: Who has been hurt by your comments and action? What do you suppose their needs are? What is your and our obligations regarding this action? Why did this happen? What sort of injury did you experience to make you think this way? Who are the stakeholders in this situation? What is the appropriate process to involve we as stakeholders in an effort to put things right and prevent its recurrence? In the face of so many micro-aggressions, we must search for effective ways to counter those instances with what I call “micro-progressions.” These are every day actions where we can act as both active bystanders and community stakeholders. In this pursuit for social justice and equity, we must look to perform everyday actions to counter and minimize oppressive thought and action. Please consider this when you next encounter an oppressive action or speech.